Emotional Response
by WyldeGod
Summary: Rachel is dead. Alec is confused. What the hell is he doing at Logan's penthouse?


I don't own any of it of course.  I'm just telling stories here.

This falls around The Beresford Agenda.

I'm going to give all my work an R because I tend to try and be as descriptive as possible with my battle sequences and I do tend to cuss on occasion.  I would have to say though that my writing is not far removed from the show itself in those areas.

Emotional Response

          Alec found himself standing outside of Logan's Penthouse.  He didn't know how long he had been standing there but he knew he couldn't force himself to leave.  He had tried and he had failed.  He just stood there staring at the door.  Normally, he would have let himself into the apartment, but this time, he couldn't.  It was like he couldn't do anything anymore.

          Rachael had been so beautiful.  She had been perfect.  Alec knew that in another life perhaps, they could have been happy together.

          He had shouted, screamed actually at Robert Beresford to pull the trigger and kill him.  He demanded it, commanded it but Beresford was a good man.  He had wanted it because he didn't know, hadn't known what had happened to her after Manticore had taken him back to Gillette and put him through the paces.  Finding out she had been in a coma for two years had been too much and dying was the only way he had to offer atonement for what he had obviously caused.  Beresford was a good man though.  It was the reason Manticore wanted him dead.  It was the reason he couldn't kill Alec to avenge his daughter and Alec, well Alec wanted to die that night.

          The elevator beeped and the doors swung open to reveal Logan standing there holding a briefcase and wearing a very expensive suit.  It was obvious only that Logan had been in some sort of meeting.  A meeting that probably had nothing to do with Eyes Only or Max.

          "Alec."  Logan said.  Alec just stared at him.  Unmoving.  Logan put the key in his lock leaving the door open behind him for Alec to enter.  Alec watched Logan move into his place and down the hall.  He didn't step in until he heard Logan's bedroom door close.  He closed the front door and stood there not sure why he came in at all.  Logan didn't like him.  Logan didn't want him around.

          He had followed Max that day with the intention of making sure that Eyes Only was dead.  Instead he got his ass kicked by Max and she pressed the button that brought down Manticore.  The enter button on Logan's computer.  A hack Logan had run to control a satellite long enough to tell them he was coming.  She couldn't have done it if Logan hadn't run the hack in the first place.  He was as responsible as she was.  He had taken away the only home that 494 had ever known.

          'I want to hate you but I can't.'  Alec actually felt the lack of anger in that thought as he watched Logan exit his bedroom in his more casual clothes.  "The two of you set us free."  He said aloud.  Logan was watching him as he approached.

          Logan walked back into the room and looked at Alec.

          "Alec."  He said again. "Did you say something?"

          "X5-494 requesting information, Sir!"  Alec shouted suddenly.  'Where the hell did that come from?'  He demanded of himself.

          "Okay…" Logan said.  "Alec.  What do you want?"  Logan asked.  He was not willing to play the game.

          "X5-494 requests…" He started, but Logan stopped him.

          "ALEC!"  He yelled.  "Not playing this game.  Tell me what you want."

          "I want to forget her."  Alec said suddenly sounding somewhat small and frightened.  "I don't want to remember her.  I don't want to feel her any more."  He said.

          Logan sighed.  He knew this.  He had sat there on that couch for days unmoving and without even the slightest hint of energy.  He had felt this.  "I can't help you."  Logan said.

          "You have to.  You have connections.  You have resources.  You can find someone from Manticore.  They had a place.  It was in another part of the facility.  It was called Psy-Ops.  Manticore had ways of making you forget.  I want to forget."

          "Only you didn't forget."  Logan said.

          "What?"

          "You didn't forget.  Manticore only buried the memories deep down inside of you somewhere.  When the right trigger presented itself, everything came rushing back and you remembered as if it just happened to you the other day.  Memory is a hard thing to get control of."

          "I don't want these memories."

          "I don't want some of my memories."  Logan said.

          "You're saving the world, Logan.  Your memories are better than mine."  Alec started the argument.  He felt he would have to convince Logan to help.

          "You know that for a fact, eh?"  Logan smirked.

          "I have been trained to kill since the day I was born.  My path is a darker one.  My specialty was termination, elimination.  I am good at only one thing.  Hunting and killing from the shadows.  They never see me coming.  You are right out there in front of the entire world making satellite hacks and bringing down every obstacle the recovering world faces.  You stand directly in front of the bad guys and laugh in their face as they fall.  You are a great man.  I kill teenage girls."  Alec said dropping into a chair in the living room.  "I do it slowly and they suffer horribly without even realizing it."  Alec's voice was barely a whisper.  Logan walked out to the kitchen and returned with a bottle of Scotch.

          "Twenty-five years old."  Logan said.  "Guest needs a drink."

          "I need to forget," Alec said.  "Not just make it go away for a day or two."

          "Well, X5-494.  I'm going to show you something no one knows exists.  I will kill you if you ever speak of this to anyone."  Logan said.  Alec eyed him suspiciously as Logan opened the expensive Scotch and took a giant swig before handing the bottle to Alec.  Logan walked over to the entertainment center and popped a DVD into the player.  He turned the television set on and took the bottle back from Alec taking another swig.

          "I'm not really in the mood for a movie."  Alec said.  

          "I never had the luxury of a secret government lab that could erase my memory."  Logan's answered.

          The vid started with a picture of a twelve year old Logan running toward a new mountain bike in the back of a giant yard behind a mansion.  There were many people gathered, but only two were paying attention to the boy.  A woman was telling her son about a trip the boy, his mother and father and their newborn sister would be taking that weekend to try out his new bike on the mountain trails near the family cabin.

          "She's beautiful."  Alec said.  "You're mother?"

          "Yes.  Maria."  Logan said.  "She Loved me."  He said handing the bottle back to Alec.

          "Is that your father?"

          "Yes.  That's my uncle Jonas standing beside him."  Logan said.  "Listen."  He told Alec.

          It was obvious the two men didn't like each other.

          _"I warned you."  __Jonas__ was scolding his younger brother._

_          "Not today, __Jonas__."  The older __Logan__ said.  "It's my son's birthday.  I will not tolerate your bullshit today.  I will not discuss business today.  I did not put this party together for my son so that you might spend the day yelling at me.  Now go get drunk someplace else and don't speak to me again.  You can yell all you want when I get back from the mountains on Monday."  The man said turning back to his son with a smile._

          "Listen."  Logan said.  "You can just barely hear it."  Alec nodded and listened even though he didn't care about some happy childhood memories.

          _The camera followed the older __Logan__ as he turned toward his son and beautiful wife.  It panned across a hard, but somewhat attractive woman showing off a ring and matching diamond pendant to other relatives.  Then the voice started._

_          "Marley.  __Jonas__.  I'm giving you the go ahead.  I don't want to but he's leaving me no choice…" The voice faded out as the younger __Logan__ shouted something to his dad and the boy and his parents all hugged._

_          Logan began fast forwarding through other family videos._

          "Interesting, but how is that going to help me forget."  Alec asked.

          "Shut up and watch."  Logan said.  The bottle passed again.  Logan stopped the DVD on another scene.

          _"What do you think?"  A slightly older __Logan__ asked as if modeling the coat he was wearing._

_          "You seem happier about the arrangement."  The older __Logan__ said.  It had only been a few years, but he was older still.  __Maria__ was just as beautiful as she had ever been.  __Alec__ noticed they were at an airport standing outside of a limousine near the plane._

_          "I look at it this way."  The young __Logan__ said.  "Spend a year at the academy instead of three years in a private high school and then I go straight into __Yale__.  I graduate when I'm nineteen or twenty and I'm ahead of the game."  The boy said.  His mother hugged him._

_          "I'm so proud of you."  __Maria__ said._

_          "I'm sorry we can't be there with you, but this Marcastle account is of the utmost importance and I cannot trust __Jonas__ as far as I could throw him."  The old man said.  "I promise we will come by and see you when we get back in town."_

_          "It's okay Dad.  I don't blame you.  I blame __Jonas__."  __Logan__ said with a knowing smile.  His father laughed._

_          "That's my boy."  He said.  The woman holding the little girl smiled and leaned forward.  __Logan__ kissed both of them on the cheek and the woman pulled him tight to her and the little girl.  __Alec__ noticed the little girl had been crying._

_          "You stay safe and take care of yourself.  Don't let the other rich boys boss you around.  You do the right thing, my best little man and we'll see you in a few days."  __Maria__ said kissing her son on the cheek again.  "I'll miss you."_

_          "I'll miss you too, Mom."  __Logan__ said turning a little red in the cheek._

_          "Logo bye now."  The little girl said.  Barely two and she was forming basic sentences._

_          "__Logan__ go bye now."  __Logan__ said to his sister.  "But I'll see you in a few days."  He reached up and tickled the girl until she was giggling, but as soon as he quit, she started to cry again._

_          "Logo bye now."  She said again.  She ducked her head down on her mothers shoulder.  The threesome walked away as __Logan__ took the camera from the friend who had been filming it.  __Logan__ watched his family as they stepped up to the plane and turned to wave just before they ducked inside.  __Logan__ turned the camera toward his friend revealing someone __Alec__ knew somehow._

_          "Well, Pier."  __Logan__ said turning to his friend that had been filming.  "Up the Academy, eh?"  The camera followed Pier into the limousine and out of the window as the limo drove off of the grounds to a parking lot not far from the runway._

          "Is that really Pierpont Lempkin?"  Alec asked handing the bottle to Logan.

          "Yep.  Used to be my best friend."

          "What happened?"  Alec asked.

          "You'll see."

          _The camera was back on __Logan__ as he stepped out of the limo at the end of the runway.  Pierpont was still in the car but had stood through the sunroof to film the take-off with __Logan__ in the picture._

_          "What's it feel like, __Logan__?"  Pierpont asked.  The plane started moving forward.  The nose lifted and the plane gained altitude.  "Tell me, __Logan__.  What does it feel like?"  The friend asked again.  His voice had an edge to it all of a sudden._

_          "What?"  __Logan__ asked.  The plane nosed upward and burst into a giant fireball spreading burning debris and bodies and large chunks of metal all over the runway and the surrounding grounds.  The camera stayed on __Logan__ and the fire until the last chunks of plane had fallen from the sky.  __Logan__ had fallen to his knees during the explosion.  Then something strange happened.  The limo started driving away.  The camera was tossed to the ground.  A kneeling __Logan__ framed sideways in the frame before the video went snowy._

          "Oh my, God!"  Alec said.  "Logan."  Alec was stunned.  "I didn't know."

          "Marley Lempkin and my Uncle Jonas planned the whole thing."  Logan said.  His voice was monotone and he was staring into his office without actually seeing anything.  "Pierpont was in it from the beginning.  I spent the next year at the academy struggling without a single person on my side.  I worked hard, but I eventually found the proof I needed.  Marley Lempkin, Pierpont's father was the assassin.  He planted the bomb that killed 314 people that Wednesday afternoon… 311 innocent people had to die so that my Uncle Jonas could have his way..."

          "Logan…" Alec said again.  How could he continue.  He was an assassin.  Just like this Marley Lempkin and because of him, an innocent died.  Just as Logan lost a little sister, a Mother and Father, Alec had killed someone that could have been Logan's little sister.

          "I hunted him."  Logan continued.  "I did research and I taught myself how to hack and I dug up all the information I needed to prove that Lempkin was the assassin.  I found everything I was looking for.  I found every single byte of information I needed to prove it."

          "What did you do?"  Alec asked.  He was suddenly interested because Logan's tone wasn't the tone of a spoiled rich boy anymore.  His tone was that of a cold merciless killer that had just finished the hunt.

          "I went to the authorities and they threatened me with prison for hacking the information.  The tragedy was the only reason I was not prosecuted.  When I learned that no one was going to help, I went out on the hunt on my own.  It took me several days and I blew off a very important meeting that could have made my life far different than the way it turned out.  I tracked Marley Lempkin to his private gym on the south side of the city, not to far from where South Market now is."

          "You killed him."  Alec said.  "You pulled the trigger."

          "I found him in the steam room.  I had never met the man.  I'm not sure that he knew who I was at first.  We were alone.  I walked into the room and he grunted, but otherwise didn't acknowledge me.  I watched him for some time.  It was hard.  I had never done anything like this before.  I should have been in Boston accepting a nomination for the Pulitzer Prize in Journalism for a story I wrote for MSNBC.  I was still a student, but I had gifts, you know.

          "Instead, I found myself trying to decide just how I was going to go about killing another human being.  In truth I was more worried about getting caught than I was about killing the man.  I walked over to him with a large hot coal in the tongs and thumped his throat with my hand.  When he opened his mouth, I shoved the red-hot coal into it and held his mouth while I taped his jaw up with duct tape."  Logan swallowed a good portion of the bottle and handed it to Alec.  "Then I just beat him.  I beat his face and his chest and his ribs until I felt every one of them break.  I beat his legs and I burned him with hot coals and I pounded his head on the wall.  I broke his fingers and toes and I shoved his face in the coals in the center of the room.  Then I started to cut him.  I don't really know when he died.  I didn't care.  I was just glad when it was over that he was dead."  Logan stopped talking and Alec drained the Glenfiddich.  Logan turned to the kitchen to get another bottle.  "Security video from the gym that day."  He gestured to the DVD player.  "I hacked the files when I got home later the same day."  Logan said hitting the play button.

          Alec watched as Logan acted out everything he had just admitted to.  It was cold and calculated, savage and ridiculously violent.  The security tapes had no sound, but Alec had been in a few events in his life and he could hear the sounds.  He watched the whole thing play out exactly as Logan had described it.  He couldn't figure out when the man died either, but there was a lot of blood.  A lot of blood.  Alec understood this Eyes Only a little better now.  Logan returned with another bottle of twenty-five year old Scotch.

          "I'm sorry."  Alec muttered.  What the hell was he supposed to say?  Manticore hadn't trained him for this.

          "Seven or eight months ago, there was an incident in Seattle that Max and I were involved in.  The first attack drone was in circulation and being tested.  Two .45 caliber automatics were mounted inside of a hover drone.  Show the hover drone a picture and it hunted and killed that person.  The Marcastle deal.  My father didn't want it but it made Cale Industries a true power player after the pulse."  Logan explained.

          "My Uncle Jonas killed his brother, my father, fifteen years ago and just a few months back he tried to use the drone to kill me.  Max saved my life.  My Uncle's partner turned the drone on Jonas.  The drone disappeared after that, but I have an idea where it went."  Logan said.  He looked at Alec.  He looked deep into Alec's eyes.  "You can't just erase the memory.  Nothing will ever make it go away."  Logan said.  Alec watched him.  Neither man blinked.  Here before him was a genetically unmodified human being that had to use a powered exo-skeleton to walk because he was paralyzed from the waist down.  A man that for reasons darker than Alec or Max had ever imagined was now trying desperately to save the world.  "You toss a rock in the water and it makes waves.  Eventually those waves go away, but that rock will still be there just under the surface.  Your waves went away, Alec, but you just discovered that rock still laying down there."

          "Logan.  I'm so sorry.  You must hate me."

          "I don't really like you."  Logan admitted.  "You're Marley Lempkin."  Logan handed Alec the bottle.  "Take it with you."

          "Thanks."  Alec said.  He realized the word held no meaning at this point.  He grabbed the bottle Logan had wrapped in a paper bag.  He was staring at a man that had lived on both sides of the coin.  Logan was Robert Beresford and the assassin that killed his daughter.  He was the good and the bad rolled into one servo assisted package.  "Thanks."  Alec said again not really sure why.

          "I don't hate you, Alec and I never will.  If you were the cold-blooded killer Manticore trained you to be, you wouldn't feel this way about a girl you hardly knew.  You would never have fallen in Love with her in the first place.  I'm going to page Max now and tell her about the girl's obit.  She saved your ass from Beresford.  She has a right to know how it ends."  Logan said.  Alec nodded.  He looked at Logan.  He looked into Eyes Only.

          "You've never told Max."  Alec said.

          "I may not be the cold-blooded killer Manticore trained you to be, but there is cold blood in these veins.  Max doesn't need anymore pain than she already has.  She doesn't need to carry my demons with all of her own floating around in there.  The only reason I showed you was to prove a point."

          "The rock is always there."  Alec said.

          "The rock is always there."  Logan acknowledged.

          "Friends?"  Alec asked.  It was a strange feeling but he realized he wanted to be friends with this man.

          "We'll work on it."  Logan said.  It was enough for Alec.  He left the penthouse knowing that he would be okay.  'I'm always okay.'  He thought to himself.  'Thanks, Logan.'

          There you go.  This is one of my second season tweaks.  I have a whole series of ideas that came to me at the end of that strange season that have nothing to do with my future history.  Since I'm going to have to sort and edit the future history before I continue that particular storyline, I'll post these for now.  Hope you all enjoy them.

            I'd like to thank everyone who reviewed my first story.  I would have loved to respond to most of you but AOL sucks of course and I'm switching to Earthlink in a few weeks when the timing allows.  Thanks go out to Darkangel81, Kasman, Wintermint, You Know Who, Cheetahluke, Catherder and Bastgoddess.  I would like to extend a special thank to Kyre for offering my very first review.  It was fantastic to get it so quickly upon posting and so positive.  I am ecstatic that you guys liked it.  Thanks to all of you.

            Mike

              The Wyldegod


End file.
